515 pages ; 22 cm

This remarkable collection, which won the 1986 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, includes most of the poems from each of Derek Walcott's seven prior books of verse and all of his long autobiographical poem, "Another Life." The 1992 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Walcott has been producing--for several decades--a poetry with all the beauty, wisdom, directness, and narrative force of our classic myths and fairy tales, and in this hefty volume readers will find a full record of his important endeavor

Includes bibliographical references (page 512) and index

From In a green night: Poems 1948-1960 [1962] Prelude -- As John to Patmos -- A city's death by fire -- The harbour -- From Selected poems [1964]: Origins -- From In a green night (1962): A far cry from Africa -- Ruins of a great house -- Tales of the islands -- Return to D'Ennery; Rain -- Pocomania -- Parang -- Two poems on the passing of an empire -- Orient and immortal wheat -- A lesson for this Sunday -- Bleecker Street, summer -- A letter from Brooklyn -- Brise marine -- A sea- chantey -- The Polish rider -- The banyan tree, old year's night -- In a green night -- Islands -- From the castaway and other poems [1965]: The castaway -- The swamp -- Tarpon -- Missing the sea -- The glory trumpeter -- A map of Europe -- Nights in the gardens of Port of Spain -- Crusoe's island -- Coral From The gulf [1070]: From The castaway and other poems (1965): The flock -- A village life -- Goats and monkeys -- Laventille -- Verandah -- God rest ye merry, gentlemen -- Crusoe's journal -- Lampfall -- Codicil -- From The gulf and other poems (1969): Mass man -- Exile -- Homage to Edward Thomas -- The gulf -- Elegy -- Blues -- Air -- Guyana -- Che -- Negatives -- Landfall, Grenada -- Homecoming: Anse La Raye -- Star -- Cold spring harbor -- Love in the valley -- Nearing forty -- The walk -- Another life [1973]: One / The divided child -- Two / Homage to Gregorias -- Three / A simple flame -- Four / The estranging sea -- From sea grapes [1976]: Sea grapes -- Sunday lemons -- New world -- Adam's song -- Preparing for exile -- Names -- Sainte Lucie -- Volcano -- Endings -- The fist -- Love after love -- Dark August -- Sea canes -- Midsummer, Tobago -- Oddjob, a bull terrier -- Winding up -- The morning moon -- To return to the trees -- From The star-apple kingdom [1979]: The schooner flight -- Sabbaths, W.I. -- The sea is history -- Egypt, Tobago -- The saddhu of Couva -- Forest of Europe -- Koenig of the river -- The star-apple kingdom -- From The fortunate traveller [1981]: Old New England -- Upstate -- Piano practice

North and south -- Beachhead -- Map of the new world -- From this far -- Europa -- The man who loved islands -- Hurucan -- Jean Rhys -- The liberator -- The spoiler's return -- The Hotel Normandie pool -- Early Pompeian -- Easter -- Wales -- The fortunate traveller -- The season of phantasmal peace -- From Midsummer [1984]: II / Companion in Romne, whom Rome makes as old as Rome -- III / At the Queen's Park Hotel, with its white, high ceilinged rooms -- VI / Midsummer stretches beside me with its cat's yawn -- VII / Our houses are one step from the gutter. Plastic curtains -- XI / My double, tired morning, closes the door -- XIV / With the frenzy of an old snake shedding its skin -- XV / I can sense it coming from far, too, Maman, the tide -- XVIII / In the other 'eighties, a hundred midsummers gone -- XIX / Gauguin -- XX / Watteau -- XXI/ A long, white summer cloud, like a cleared linen table -- XXIII / With the stampeding hiss and scurry of green lemmings -- XXV / The sun has fired my face to terra-cotta -- XXVI / Before that thundercloud breaks from its hawsers -- XXVII / Certain things here are quietly American -- XXVIII / Something primal in our spine makes the child swing -- XXX / Gold dung and urinous straw from teh horse garages -- XXXIII / Those grooves in that forehead of sand-coloured flesh -- XXXV / Mud. Clods. The sucking heel of the rain-flinger -- XXXVI / The oak inns creak in their joints as light declines -- XXXIX / The grey English road hissed emptily under the tires -- XLI / The camps hold their distance-brown chestnuts and grey smoke -- XLII / Chicago's avenues, as white as Poland -- XLIII / Tropic zone -- XLIX / A wind-scraped headland, a sludgy, dishwater sea -- L / I once gave my daughters, separately, two conch shells -- LI / Since all of your work was really an effort to appease -- LII / I heard them marching the leaf-wet roads of my head -- LIII / There was one Syrian, with his bicycle, in our town -- LIV / The midsummer sea, the hot pitch road, this grass, these shacks

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews